Transcript: AAC — 03 Apr 2026 (Q&A)
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WEBVTT 00:00:22.192 --> 00:00:24.972It is the 3rd of April, 2026. 00:00:24.972 --> 00:00:26.072 I am Corey J. 00:00:26.072 --> 00:00:28.752 Mahler, and this is At Any Cost. 00:00:28.752 --> 00:00:32.912 This is episode 23, a Q&A episode. 00:00:32.912 --> 00:00:41.412 And I do not have any housekeeping for this week other than to wish all of you a blessed Good Friday. 00:00:41.412 --> 00:00:44.672 So I will get right into the questions. 00:00:44.672 --> 00:00:53.472 I'm actually going to start with two questions from previous episodes that I did not get around to answering. 00:00:53.472 --> 00:01:00.612 And then we'll move into some specifically for this episode that came in this week. 00:01:01.692 --> 00:01:03.712 So question 1. 00:01:03.712 --> 00:01:10.432 What have the Japanese done that kept their morality intact as opposed to the rest of Asia? 00:01:10.432 --> 00:01:16.912 Why are they not as morally bankrupt as China or India, or not as devolved as India is? 00:01:18.572 --> 00:01:25.812 I put this one off in part because it's kind of a complex question, as you can probably already notice. 00:01:25.812 --> 00:01:27.972 And there is a lot to go over here. 00:01:27.972 --> 00:01:32.352 So this one is going to take a little time to answer. 00:01:32.352 --> 00:01:50.892 Probably not too much time, but in order to understand the differences in Asia, we're going to limit this analysis to limit Japan, China, and India, because expanding it beyond that would have been, you know, the course of study of an entire semester at university. 00:01:50.892 --> 00:01:59.772 But in order to understand these differences, you have to understand some religions slash world views first. 00:01:59.772 --> 00:02:05.312 A little bit, not going into it in depth, because again, that would be quite the course. 00:02:05.312 --> 00:02:11.092 So Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Taoism are really what's in play here. 00:02:11.212 --> 00:02:30.992 Yes, you also do have more recently Islam in the case of India, but quite frankly, I'm just going to ignore it, because it doesn't form as much of the substrate on which all of this stuff has occurred over a course of 2,000 plus years. 00:02:30.992 --> 00:02:32.952 Really more than that. 00:02:32.952 --> 00:02:46.252 But Shintoism, starting there, is polytheistic and animistic, and is going to have the largest impact, and almost exclusively in this case, a little bit in China, but almost exclusively Japan. 00:02:46.252 --> 00:02:55.072 And the focus for Shintoism is ritual, purity, and it's focused on this life. 00:02:55.072 --> 00:03:02.012 I'm obviously simplifying this to some degree, so bear that in mind, kum granasalis, as it were. 00:03:02.012 --> 00:03:16.332 But insofar as commonalities and differences, I'm going to sort of break it down that way, so we can compare it to Christianity and how it has influenced these societies, these cultures, these races, as opposed to European Christianity. 00:03:16.332 --> 00:03:21.632 And so, for commonalities, you do the focus on prayer in Shintoism. 00:03:21.632 --> 00:03:36.632 There's communal worship, moral purity, community, hard work, and honoring ancestors is a little bit of an overlap because it overlaps with obviously the Fourth Commandment and particularly a proper understanding of the Fourth Commandment. 00:03:36.632 --> 00:03:39.432 See Stone Choir for more. 00:03:39.432 --> 00:03:46.012 So that's the rough outline, a small bit, as it were, for Shintoism. 00:03:46.012 --> 00:03:47.472 Now Buddhism. 00:03:47.472 --> 00:03:49.412 Buddhism is non-theistic. 00:03:49.412 --> 00:03:56.292 It's going to be less of a religion and more of a world view, although it has elements of being a religion as well. 00:03:56.312 --> 00:03:58.692 Usually it's layered on to something else. 00:03:58.692 --> 00:04:01.612 There's syncretic pairing, as it were. 00:04:02.332 --> 00:04:10.352 And so you have the religion of Shintoism with some Buddhism on it, so the Japanese case, Zen Buddhism mostly in their case. 00:04:10.352 --> 00:04:22.932 As far as differences go, because it's really mostly differences here, there's a little bit of focus, the same with regard to morality, but it's so different and for different reasons that there's almost no overlap with Christianity. 00:04:22.932 --> 00:04:30.252 But there's a denial of the self in an absolute sense in Buddhism that is not a thing in Western Christianity. 00:04:30.312 --> 00:04:51.712 And I don't mean denial of the self in the way that Western ears might hear it, which would be, if you say denial of the self to a Westerner, they're going to hear self-control or fasting, something like that, denying the self in a way that is deliberately doing that for some other purpose, whatever it happens to be. 00:04:51.712 --> 00:04:52.972 That's not what Buddhism is. 00:04:52.972 --> 00:04:58.452 Buddhism is a denial of the self as self, saying the self ultimately doesn't exist. 00:04:58.532 --> 00:05:08.092 And so, you wind up with views that are not even really annihilationist, because you're returning to the grand universe. 00:05:08.092 --> 00:05:15.192 And so, it's a dissolution of the self, but not really annihilation, because it doesn't believe the self ever existed. 00:05:15.192 --> 00:05:22.492 Obviously, very different from Christianity, from the Western view of things, including the pagans in this case. 00:05:22.492 --> 00:05:31.412 There's a focus on impermanence, karma, reincarnation, and a pursuit of what they call enlightenment, which is really just realizing you don't exist. 00:05:31.412 --> 00:05:33.112 Sort of absurd, but... 00:05:33.112 --> 00:05:36.752 as opposed to what we would call a pursuit of wisdom. 00:05:36.752 --> 00:05:40.012 So, there's a distinction there between wisdom and enlightenment. 00:05:40.012 --> 00:05:43.552 They're not the same thing in these traditions. 00:05:43.552 --> 00:05:51.512 Confucianism, obviously mostly the Chinese case, although during the Tokugawa period also applicable to Japan. 00:05:51.512 --> 00:05:53.472 So, there's some cross-pollination there, as it were. 00:05:53.472 --> 00:05:58.232 Part of that came through Korea, but we're ignoring them for tonight. 00:05:58.232 --> 00:06:08.792 The focus there would be, again, ritual, but propriety more than purity, in this case, filial piety, and social harmony. 00:06:08.792 --> 00:06:17.992 There's also benevolence, but it's in a different sense from how we would use the term in the West, and so I don't know I can really add that in here. 00:06:17.992 --> 00:06:32.932 As far as commonalities go, you also have that respect for ancestors, although for differences, in this case, it starts to shade into ancestor worship, which obviously we do not do in Christian lands, or at least we should not be doing. 00:06:32.932 --> 00:06:35.032 There's syncretism in some parts of the world, obviously. 00:06:35.032 --> 00:06:38.712 It's a big problem in Africa, for instance. 00:06:38.712 --> 00:06:47.432 The focus, again, is on this life, as opposed to the next life, as opposed to salvation, damnation, judgment, things like that. 00:06:47.432 --> 00:06:50.532 It's a focus on this life, and so it is a different thing. 00:06:52.792 --> 00:07:00.052 Apparently, OBS decided to disconnect from Kik, but I'll just toggle that, and hopefully it'll fix itself. 00:07:02.472 --> 00:07:04.712 And maybe it did. 00:07:06.052 --> 00:07:13.972 Anyway, moving on to Hinduism, which is one more after that, because Taoism does play a role as well. 00:07:13.972 --> 00:07:19.172 Hinduism is polytheistic, obviously extremely polytheistic in most formulations. 00:07:19.732 --> 00:07:24.612 Also pantheistic, more than panentheistic. 00:07:24.612 --> 00:07:40.452 So for commonalities, there's a focus on morality in it, but it is an illusory focus, and it takes such a form in Hinduism that it's not anything we, as Christians or Westerners, would recognize as morality, and we'll get into that as well. 00:07:40.452 --> 00:07:45.612 So for Taoism, the last one here, the Tao is an impersonal force. 00:07:46.012 --> 00:07:53.472 There's no actual or absolute moral right and wrong moral system in that world view. 00:07:53.472 --> 00:07:57.392 It's more indifferent, because it's an impersonal force. 00:07:57.392 --> 00:08:06.252 So now to get into analyzing why these nations are different, and how they sort of got where they are. 00:08:06.252 --> 00:08:08.192 Obviously, again, this is going to be cursory. 00:08:08.192 --> 00:08:18.092 This is the sort of stuff where you could spend an entire semester on each one of these nations just within this scope in university somewhere. 00:08:19.172 --> 00:08:28.832 So like I mentioned earlier, there's the Tokugawa period, which is basically the sort of end of the samurai period here, hundreds of years ago in this case. 00:08:28.832 --> 00:08:31.812 And you have a policy of seclusion. 00:08:31.812 --> 00:08:33.372 This is Japan. 00:08:34.692 --> 00:08:41.452 And Confucianism is also imported at this point, sort of from China into Japan. 00:08:41.532 --> 00:08:54.352 It starts to form some of the ultimate foundation of the Japanese outlook, their worldview as it would be constituted today, adding to Shintoism. 00:08:54.352 --> 00:09:05.312 Now, you also have, after this period, there's the Meiji restoration, which is when they start to adopt some of the Western views of things. 00:09:05.312 --> 00:09:09.692 And so this is when the economy starts to become capitalist, for instance. 00:09:09.752 --> 00:09:13.712 Capitalism plays a role in all of this, but you have reform. 00:09:13.712 --> 00:09:22.332 Incidentally, you have a purging of foreign elements during that period, largely trying to remove Chinese influence from Japanese society. 00:09:22.332 --> 00:09:35.112 And so some suppression of Confucianism in favor of more of the traditional Shintoism, which is sort of the pagan Japanese religion. 00:09:35.112 --> 00:09:43.812 I should probably mention that the Japanese religion doesn't really have much of a focus on salvation, judgment, damnation, the afterlife. 00:09:43.812 --> 00:09:56.272 It's, like I said in the beginning, it's more focused on this life, but it's also regional sort of in a way that we do not have with obviously Christianity, because we have a creator god who made everything. 00:09:56.272 --> 00:09:57.472 He is god. 00:09:57.472 --> 00:10:06.292 They have a bunch of kami, which are basically local gods that have some connection to a place and don't really have an overarching power. 00:10:06.852 --> 00:10:13.752 And so you have all these various shrines, you go and revere them, but they don't have one creator god as we have. 00:10:13.752 --> 00:10:19.712 And so you don't have the same sort of system of judgment and salvation, things like that. 00:10:19.712 --> 00:10:30.832 So these are some differences where we would call them obviously wrong, but they also play into the differences between the various Asian peoples and why they are the way they are. 00:10:30.832 --> 00:10:39.072 We'll see the greatest contrast between the Japanese and the Indians actually, but there's some contrast there obviously between the Japanese and the Chinese as well. 00:10:40.672 --> 00:10:53.252 But in addition to sort of this opening up that you have during this period and the modernization, you see the creation of the zaibatsu, which are basically large conglomerates. 00:10:53.252 --> 00:10:57.992 This is partly an outgrowth of the way that the Japanese view the world. 00:10:57.992 --> 00:11:03.952 And so you have these large industrial conglomerates that, in some cases, do basically everything. 00:11:04.012 --> 00:11:05.872 You have equivalents in China and Korea. 00:11:05.872 --> 00:11:13.992 This is kind of common in Asia generally, less common in the European context, although we have some of that now as well. 00:11:13.992 --> 00:11:21.252 This is sort of how they integrated capitalism into their system and gave it a Japanese flavor. 00:11:22.392 --> 00:11:33.432 But insofar as the overall way that Japanese religion interfaces with their society, it's sort of less overtly religious as we would conceive of it. 00:11:33.872 --> 00:11:40.092 And it's become more of sort of the background radiation of the society, the foundation. 00:11:40.092 --> 00:11:49.192 It's based on the mixture of all of these things, but not necessarily overtly religious in the way we would think of it. 00:11:49.192 --> 00:11:59.732 This is similar to some of the very secular now so-called European nations that are still very culturally Christian, but no longer particularly religiously Christian. 00:12:01.332 --> 00:12:19.232 But moving on to China, and I have one particular aspect I'm going to draw out after I do these brief country summaries that really highlights the difference in how they came to be the way that they are, but it's important to understand the philosophies and the religions that fed into that. 00:12:19.232 --> 00:12:26.172 But in the Chinese case, they have what they call the Three Teachings, and the Three Teachings are Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. 00:12:26.172 --> 00:12:27.212 That's why I went over those. 00:12:27.212 --> 00:12:28.292 They're all relevant here. 00:12:28.952 --> 00:12:34.212 So, for Confucianism, you get the Chinese focus on hierarchy comes from that. 00:12:34.212 --> 00:12:54.872 Again, filial piety, the focus on social harmony instead of strife, and so there's a particular pressure not to ruffle feathers, as it were, which is going to run counter to sort of the individualism in the non-negative sense that has always been part of Western society. 00:12:55.772 --> 00:13:08.192 They're going to focus more on group cohesion as opposed to being right, for instance, which you can see that starts to play into how they're different. 00:13:08.692 --> 00:13:11.132 There is a focus on moral self-cultivation. 00:13:11.132 --> 00:13:13.792 We can sort of resonate with that for Confucianism. 00:13:13.792 --> 00:13:23.692 There's some similarity there, but again, the morality is very different from what we would call morality, and so it's not necessarily a commonality. 00:13:23.732 --> 00:13:25.352 There's a big difference there. 00:13:25.352 --> 00:13:28.192 There is a focus on merit-based governance. 00:13:28.192 --> 00:13:46.012 In part, this is inherent to Confucianism itself, and in part, it comes from the imperial period in which you had large-scale, mass-scale instruction in Confucianism, including testing in order to get into these imperial positions, and you had a giant bureaucracy. 00:13:46.012 --> 00:13:55.072 It was very much deliberately entrenched in the Chinese nation by the empire, by the imperial court. 00:13:55.072 --> 00:14:01.052 And then, that's also where we get the Chinese view of benevolent authoritarianism. 00:14:01.052 --> 00:14:03.112 We have that as well in the West. 00:14:03.112 --> 00:14:20.252 It's a slightly different formulation because racial differences, but that comes in large part from Confucianism and from the way that the Chinese empire used it in order to maintain their control, build out their control, and shape their society as well to some degree. 00:14:21.892 --> 00:14:28.252 For Taoism, I don't know that I really need to get into their concept of wu wei, the effortless action sort of thing. 00:14:28.252 --> 00:14:44.412 It plays a role in this because there's an undercurrent in Taoism, the view of the world, that you have this impersonal force that sort of acts without acting in an effortless way, and aligning yourself with that is seen as a good thing. 00:14:44.412 --> 00:14:47.492 And so you can see how that would influence their psychology to some degree. 00:14:47.492 --> 00:14:48.092 It plays a role. 00:14:49.212 --> 00:15:01.852 But there's adaptability, and pragmatism is a big part of Taoism, which very much plays into the Chinese psychology and how they, of course, view the world, but how they interact with the world. 00:15:01.852 --> 00:15:05.872 Their entire world view has that as sort of a substrate. 00:15:07.152 --> 00:15:18.392 And there are some who will bring up harmony with nature that's supposedly part of Taoism, but I think we can all look at modern China and see that it is anything but harmonious when it comes to nature. 00:15:18.392 --> 00:15:27.572 And so pragmatism sort of controlled over that, particularly after the introduction of capitalism and industrialization. 00:15:29.372 --> 00:15:34.672 So that's sort of the brief over there for Taoism how it plays into the Chinese system. 00:15:34.672 --> 00:15:42.892 But for Buddhism, you get the general thing for Buddhism, the impermanence and the focus on karma, a little less in the Chinese case. 00:15:44.252 --> 00:15:52.992 But much the same as Japan, this is more of the background or the substrate of the culture instead of an outright overt sort of religion. 00:15:52.992 --> 00:15:56.852 They are not overtly religious, mostly. 00:15:56.852 --> 00:16:03.792 In the same way that we are in the West, for those of us who are actually religious still. 00:16:03.792 --> 00:16:08.812 The mandate of heaven is another thing that's important to understand in the Chinese case. 00:16:08.812 --> 00:16:12.432 That gets more into politics, which perhaps is relevant at some point. 00:16:12.432 --> 00:16:13.792 I guess it's relevant today, really. 00:16:14.632 --> 00:16:28.812 But the mandate of heaven was the argument of the Chinese Imperial Court, that they had a right, a divine right to rule, because they had the mandate of heaven, the mandate of the gods, right? 00:16:28.812 --> 00:16:35.592 The Chinese Communist Party doesn't necessarily use the same language, but they use the same arguments. 00:16:35.592 --> 00:16:37.212 They still use Confucianism. 00:16:37.212 --> 00:16:42.752 They suppressed Confucianism, supposedly, but then reimported all of its teachings. 00:16:43.692 --> 00:16:49.852 So, they kind of did the same thing that the Communists did in Russia with the Russian Orthodox Church. 00:16:49.852 --> 00:16:56.512 They pretended to suppress it, then they revived it, brought it back, and used it as a political weapon, which is exactly what it became. 00:16:56.512 --> 00:16:58.772 And it is... 00:16:58.772 --> 00:17:36.912 There are those who will try to argue that because of the fact the Communists pretended, really pretended, to suppress Confucianism in the Chinese case, that they are at odds, but really, Confucianism is what paved the way for Communism to take over China, because of that natural acceptance of almost totalitarianism, not authoritarianism, really, as we would call it, this conformity, this slavish acceptance of hierarchy, the desire not to ruffle feathers, all of these things played into fertile soil for Communism. 00:17:37.892 --> 00:17:47.872 There's a bit of exploitation there as well, obviously, because there was Jewish involvement with the Chinese Communist Party, particularly early on, but question for another time, perhaps. 00:17:47.872 --> 00:18:00.952 But Confucianism has given them the ability to mobilize in a way that is difficult in some other countries, because you have this level of mass conformity and this obedience to hierarchy. 00:18:00.952 --> 00:18:03.832 There are advantages and disadvantages. 00:18:03.832 --> 00:18:13.332 Individually, they don't do so well, but you can mass mobilize them much more easily than, say, those in the West or some other places. 00:18:13.332 --> 00:18:16.732 Japan has a little bit of the collectivization as well. 00:18:16.732 --> 00:18:24.532 All of these countries in this part, not India at this point, are collective in a way that Westerners are not. 00:18:24.532 --> 00:18:32.072 The Indians are in a very specific way, both collectivist and individualist, but I'll get into that after I'm done with China here. 00:18:33.932 --> 00:18:42.192 So, they also do have this opposition to foreign influence, which has helped keep them somewhat insular. 00:18:42.192 --> 00:19:00.412 However, because of the way that it played out historically, they wound up obviously being defeated and not entirely conquered and colonized in the same way as some other nations, but they had to open up and pursue a rapid policy of development because of what this did historically. 00:19:00.472 --> 00:19:05.992 There's the whole Middle Kingdom concept and being the center of the world and not needing anything from anywhere else. 00:19:07.012 --> 00:19:08.552 It has pluses and minuses. 00:19:08.552 --> 00:19:25.092 It's kept out for influence, but it also made them insular in a way that proved to be detrimental because they sort of ignored the outside world, and you can't do that because the outside world doesn't stop existing and doesn't stop influencing you simply because you pretend they don't exist. 00:19:25.092 --> 00:19:26.912 Japan also learned that sort of the same way. 00:19:29.652 --> 00:19:37.592 But insofar as that's concerned, you also have the communist element plays into it. 00:19:37.592 --> 00:19:45.272 They're related, and because communists are always maintaining power in part based on grievance. 00:19:45.272 --> 00:19:50.592 This nation has a grievance against that one, and so, I mean, it's the same a lot of places. 00:19:50.592 --> 00:20:04.272 You have the common enemy, and the common enemy helps to unite you, but you have the century of humiliation in the Chinese context, which basically was the period before they opened up, because they were forced to open up by being conquered. 00:20:04.272 --> 00:20:06.172 Not entirely, but in part. 00:20:07.892 --> 00:20:26.652 This fuels more their interaction with some of the Western powers, although they have some views of Japan as well, incidentally, but it doesn't play as much of a role in their relationship in this part of the world, but it does form part of the psychology of how they look at the world. 00:20:26.652 --> 00:20:31.912 But then, moving on to India, the third and final one for this. 00:20:31.912 --> 00:20:39.752 The concepts that are important in India would be really the concepts that do play the major role in Hinduism. 00:20:39.752 --> 00:20:44.692 So you have what they call dharma, which is duty, which is not the Western conception of duty. 00:20:44.692 --> 00:20:48.692 It is scoped in a totally different way, and it runs in very different ways. 00:20:48.732 --> 00:20:54.192 You have karma, you have, I think we all know what karma is, I don't have to explain that one. 00:20:54.192 --> 00:20:56.612 You have samsara, which is reincarnation. 00:20:56.612 --> 00:21:01.752 It's really the cycle of life and death and suffering, but it's reincarnation. 00:21:01.752 --> 00:21:03.712 That's easy enough for what we have here. 00:21:03.712 --> 00:21:14.672 And then you have, obviously, their caste system is extremely important to understanding how they behave and why they behave the way they do. 00:21:14.672 --> 00:21:20.052 In part, their caste system, just sort of historical tangent, was imposed on them. 00:21:20.052 --> 00:21:29.492 It's partly a natural outgrowth of the fact that they are various, somewhat, at least to some degree, distinct ethnic groups inside of India. 00:21:29.492 --> 00:21:32.472 Do remember, China and India are both empires. 00:21:32.472 --> 00:21:35.332 They're not truly homogenous nations. 00:21:35.332 --> 00:21:38.572 They have different subpopulations in different parts of the country. 00:21:38.572 --> 00:21:41.912 Less so China these days, very much so India still. 00:21:41.912 --> 00:21:46.972 In part, India has the caste system because they were conquered by Indo-Europeans. 00:21:47.032 --> 00:21:53.772 They were conquered by peoples from elsewhere who then intermarried and created their upper caste. 00:21:53.772 --> 00:21:55.172 That's part of the Indian history. 00:21:55.172 --> 00:22:01.512 It's part of why the caste system can still be maintained, even though it isn't officially a thing in Indian policy anymore. 00:22:01.512 --> 00:22:02.232 It really is. 00:22:02.232 --> 00:22:05.972 It's just not enshrined in the law anymore. 00:22:05.972 --> 00:22:11.692 But India is rigidly hierarchical according to that caste system. 00:22:12.992 --> 00:22:17.532 And so, you don't have any mobility insofar as that's concerned. 00:22:17.532 --> 00:22:21.372 Today, there's a little bit of leeway because of capitalism and wealth and things like that. 00:22:21.372 --> 00:22:29.812 But generally speaking, the people in the lower castes are not going to achieve great things anyway, because part of it, again, is biological. 00:22:29.812 --> 00:22:35.632 You can almost map caste to IQ, essentially, in the Indian case. 00:22:35.632 --> 00:22:39.132 So, the caste system is that you have the priests and the scholars at the top. 00:22:39.952 --> 00:22:46.932 You have the warriors and the rulers, the merchants, the laborers, and the untouchables, the Dalits. 00:22:46.932 --> 00:22:52.152 So, if you're looking for a word that makes Indians mad at you, there you go. 00:22:53.352 --> 00:23:03.072 One of the problems that you have with their particular formulation of a caste system is that there is severe pressure to stay within your caste. 00:23:03.072 --> 00:23:05.352 That in and of itself is not necessarily bad. 00:23:05.352 --> 00:23:07.852 I mean, obviously, they have, you know, a billion plus people. 00:23:07.992 --> 00:23:10.612 So, there are a lot of people in each caste. 00:23:10.612 --> 00:23:31.232 But because of the way that their society works with regard to family structure and the unofficial networks of people, you wind up with severe endogamous pressure, which is to say, it winds up being inbreeding, which is a huge part of the explanation for why the Indians are the way they are. 00:23:31.232 --> 00:23:31.772 It's inbreeding. 00:23:31.772 --> 00:23:33.372 It's a huge part of it. 00:23:33.372 --> 00:23:36.132 That's the case in basically every part of the world with low IQ. 00:23:37.012 --> 00:23:38.152 It's inbreeding. 00:23:38.152 --> 00:23:46.172 It is, in many cases, particularly Africa, promiscuity, which leads to inbreeding because they don't know their fathers. 00:23:46.172 --> 00:23:51.112 And if you don't know your father, sometimes you wind up marrying your sister. 00:23:51.112 --> 00:23:53.952 That obviously causes problems over hundreds of years. 00:23:53.952 --> 00:24:00.112 That's a big part of the reason India is the way it is, and it is so much worse than China and Japan. 00:24:00.112 --> 00:24:00.952 It's biology. 00:24:00.952 --> 00:24:04.912 It's the sort of harsh mistress that is genetics. 00:24:07.072 --> 00:24:15.612 But part of what I want to pull out, and part of what really contributes to this and this difference here, is the different conceptions of honor. 00:24:15.612 --> 00:24:22.032 I'm not going to go deeply into the European conception of honor because it's just not what I'm doing here. 00:24:22.032 --> 00:24:31.052 But each of these nations has a fundamentally different understanding, fundamentally different conception of what honor is. 00:24:31.052 --> 00:24:40.092 And so for the Japanese, you have what grew out of being essentially a warrior ethic, became their conception of honor. 00:24:40.092 --> 00:24:46.672 So that's about as close as you can get to the Western conception of honor in the Asian case. 00:24:46.672 --> 00:24:52.092 The Japanese are the closest to us with their understanding of honor. 00:24:52.092 --> 00:24:57.692 The Chinese, it's more hierarchy and your relationship, your place in the hierarchy. 00:24:57.692 --> 00:25:09.412 It's a relative sense, and it's relational in a way that, not in the way our honor is, because obviously we think, we'll honor thy father and thy mother, and it's not that kind of relational. 00:25:09.412 --> 00:25:11.632 It's more pragmatic. 00:25:11.632 --> 00:25:14.552 It's going back to that conception of pragmatism. 00:25:14.552 --> 00:25:20.772 The Indians are fatalist, and look at it as being sort of a cosmic duty. 00:25:20.772 --> 00:25:26.432 That's their conception of honor, and so it winds up being connected to staying in your cast and things like that. 00:25:26.432 --> 00:25:34.892 And that fatalism aspect is also important, because they look at it as you are born into this, and you are doomed to do X, Y, and Z. 00:25:35.932 --> 00:25:38.652 It's not the Western understanding of fate. 00:25:38.652 --> 00:25:39.532 It's a different kind. 00:25:39.532 --> 00:25:44.452 It is fatalistic in sort of the full sense of that. 00:25:44.452 --> 00:25:49.352 But Eastern conceptions generally are different from Western conceptions of honor. 00:25:49.352 --> 00:25:53.292 So era and isat are not the same at all. 00:25:53.292 --> 00:25:55.872 It's almost a misnomer to use the same sort of word. 00:25:57.132 --> 00:25:59.192 But in the Japanese case, you have mayo and giri. 00:25:59.192 --> 00:26:05.452 I'm not going to get too deep into terms and things, but the real core of it is duty or obligation. 00:26:05.452 --> 00:26:08.072 Obviously, it raises the question to whom duty is owed. 00:26:08.072 --> 00:26:13.812 And that's generally going to be roughly the same kind of hierarchy that we think of. 00:26:13.812 --> 00:26:15.912 Your family, your clan, your nation, right? 00:26:15.912 --> 00:26:17.032 That's what we think of. 00:26:17.032 --> 00:26:19.512 Add tribe in there if you feel like it. 00:26:19.512 --> 00:26:29.172 These days, due to industrialization and capitalization, they also have the same sort of view toward their employer, toward their corporation. 00:26:29.172 --> 00:26:30.752 And that's expected in society. 00:26:30.752 --> 00:26:33.832 That's sort of a difference between them and us. 00:26:33.832 --> 00:26:39.972 We don't really have an honor relationship with our employer. 00:26:39.972 --> 00:26:52.372 You can do things that are dishonorable in your employment, but your personal honor isn't really at stake when it comes to whether or not you're loyal as an employee to a corporation. 00:26:52.452 --> 00:26:58.992 That almost sounds insane to Western ears, particularly European Western ears, a little less so for Americans. 00:26:59.172 --> 00:27:01.772 There's a distinction there, though. 00:27:01.772 --> 00:27:06.552 But that unwavering loyalty to your group is a huge part of Japanese honor. 00:27:06.552 --> 00:27:08.552 That is incredibly important. 00:27:08.552 --> 00:27:11.272 And so your family and your nation are a big part of that. 00:27:11.272 --> 00:27:12.312 We can resonate with that. 00:27:12.312 --> 00:27:13.752 That's important. 00:27:13.752 --> 00:27:18.212 Self-restraint plays a role in their conception of honor. 00:27:18.212 --> 00:27:28.472 You have to have a willingness to sacrifice, and that's going to be your personal comfort, personal desire for things that are seen as a collective duty. 00:27:28.472 --> 00:27:33.412 A little bit similar to the Western sense, but also different from the Western conception. 00:27:33.472 --> 00:27:38.712 Like I said, the Japanese are going to be the closest to the Western conception of honor of any of these three. 00:27:38.712 --> 00:27:52.892 But the Japanese view of honor, their own personal view of it, is that it is sort of an intensely and sort of naturally Japanese thing. 00:27:52.892 --> 00:27:59.292 Their sense of honor is very Japanese, and they consciously view it as being a Japanese thing. 00:27:59.292 --> 00:28:09.152 And the final point that I'd pull out for the Japanese would be that dishonor, doing something dishonorable, brings collective shame in the Japanese mind. 00:28:09.152 --> 00:28:12.172